An Algorithmic Approach to Information and Meaning

While it is legitimate to study ideas and concepts related to information in their broadest sense, that formal approaches properly belong in specific contexts is a fact that is too often ignored. That their use outside these contexts amounts to misuse or imprecise use cannot and should not be overlooked. This paper presents a framework based on algorithmic information theory for discussing concepts of relevance to information in philosophical contexts. Special attention will be paid to the intersection of syntactic and semantic variants and connections.

[1]  Charles H. Bennett Demons, Engines and the Second Law , 1987 .

[2]  A. Kolmogorov Three approaches to the quantitative definition of information , 1968 .

[3]  J. Wheeler Information, physics, quantum: the search for links , 1999 .

[4]  Jean-Paul Delahaye Complexité aléatoire et complexité organisée , 2009 .

[5]  Paul M. B. Vitányi,et al.  Shannon Information and Kolmogorov Complexity , 2004, ArXiv.

[6]  Charles H. Bennett Logical depth and physical complexity , 1988 .

[7]  Jean-Paul Delahaye,et al.  Image information content characterization and classification by physical complexity , 2010, ArXiv.

[8]  Ray J. Solomonoff,et al.  A Formal Theory of Inductive Inference. Part II , 1964, Inf. Control..

[9]  Joost J. Joosten,et al.  Hidden Variables Simulating Quantum Contextuality Increasingly Violate the Holevo Bound , 2011, UC.

[10]  T. Toffoli,et al.  Conservative logic , 2002, Collision-Based Computing.

[11]  Rolf Herken,et al.  The Universal Turing Machine: A Half-Century Survey , 1992 .

[12]  Bin Ma,et al.  The similarity metric , 2001, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory.

[13]  Pieter Adriaans,et al.  A Critical Analysis of Floridi’s Theory of Semantic Information , 2010 .

[14]  Anthony J. G. Hey,et al.  Feynman Lectures on Computation , 1996 .

[15]  Jean-Paul Delahaye,et al.  On the Algorithmic Nature of the World , 2009, ArXiv.

[16]  James W. McAllister,et al.  Algorithmic randomness in empirical data , 2003 .

[17]  Juan G. Roederer Information and its role in nature , 2005 .

[18]  Paul M. B. Vitányi,et al.  An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications, Third Edition , 1997, Texts in Computer Science.

[19]  Rónán O'Beirne,et al.  The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and Information , 2004 .

[20]  Xin Chen,et al.  An information-based sequence distance and its application to whole mitochondrial genome phylogeny , 2001, Bioinform..

[21]  R. Landauer,et al.  Irreversibility and heat generation in the computing process , 1961, IBM J. Res. Dev..

[22]  B. Brookes,et al.  Biological information , 1974, Nature.

[23]  Ming Li,et al.  An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications , 1997, Texts in Computer Science.

[24]  Jean-Paul Delahaye,et al.  On the Kolmogorov-Chaitin Complexity for short sequences , 2007, ArXiv.

[25]  L. Floridi Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and Information , 2003 .

[26]  Jean-Paul Delahaye,et al.  Numerical evaluation of algorithmic complexity for short strings: A glance into the innermost structure of randomness , 2011, Appl. Math. Comput..

[27]  Karl Svozil,et al.  Randomness and undecidability in physics , 1993 .

[28]  L. Levin,et al.  THE COMPLEXITY OF FINITE OBJECTS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPTS OF INFORMATION AND RANDOMNESS BY MEANS OF THE THEORY OF ALGORITHMS , 1970 .

[29]  Stephen Wolfram,et al.  A New Kind of Science , 2003, Artificial Life.

[30]  Jean-Paul Delahaye,et al.  Towards a stable definition of Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexity , 2008, ArXiv.

[31]  Cristian S. Calude,et al.  Most Programs Stop Quickly or Never Halt , 2006, Adv. Appl. Math..

[32]  Jean-Paul Delahaye,et al.  Image characterization and classification by physical complexity , 2010, Complex..

[33]  Gregory J. Chaitin,et al.  A recent technical report , 1974, SIGA.

[34]  Sang Joon Kim,et al.  A Mathematical Theory of Communication , 2006 .

[35]  Luciano Floridi Philosophy of Computing and Information: 5 Questions , 2008 .

[36]  S. Lloyd Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes on the Cosmos , 2006 .

[37]  J. Bekenstein Information in the holographic universe. , 2003 .